Thank you for your interest in the 2017 CASE Convention. We have had tremendous interest this year and are at capacity for most events. Please call the CASE office at 303.762.8762 to inquire regarding the availability for all events, including Pre-Convention workshops, the Dr. Biden ticketed Q&A, and the Supervision and Evaluation Seminar Series.

Call for Registration Availability

Call CASE at 303.762.8762 to inquire regarding the availability for all Convention events.

CASE’s largest professional development event of the year is your one-stop shop for critical learning and sharing best practices with colleagues. Enjoy a national caliber convention at lower in-state prices with our internationally-recognized speakers, over 60 timely breakout sessions, and a comprehensive legislative and policy program, all in beautiful Breckenridge, Colorado.

Ravi - Millennial Mojo: How to Bridge the Generational Gap and Influence Millennial LeadershipCultural diplomat for the US Department of Education, musician, author, and global education advocate

Ravi Hutheesing (Rah-vee Hut- ee-sing) is a keynote speaker who built his brand globally as an artist-entrepreneur and social-entrepreneur. His philosophies and strategies have helped businesses, educators, and over a million people throughout the Americas, Europe, and Asia bridge generational and cultural divides. Additionally, the US Department of State engages Ravi as a cultural diplomat to create programs worldwide that foster cultural exchange and mutual understanding.

As a cultural diplomat for the US Department of State, Ravi first went to Russia in 2015 and delivered a series of lectures on artist-entrepreneurship and youth leadership. In 2016, he went to Indonesia—the world's largest Muslim population—and created a songwriting camp for millennials from ASEAN nations, showcasing how arts and entrepreneurship can bridge the most severe cultural and religious divides— see video. More programs will be added globally in 2017. The State Department has also contracted Ravi to be a judge for the prestigious 2017/2018 American Music Abroad program, for which ten bands will be selected out of hundreds to represent American culture overseas.

Launch your 48th Annual CASE Convention experience with this dynamic keynote session about navigating millennial leadership, and the importance of generational relationships for educators preparing for today, tomorrow, and beyond. Ravi gets the conversation started on forward-thinking millennial issues, and helps you anticipate the future based on millennial character traits, including their love for education, proclivity for entrepreneurship, and innate ability to rise above social injustices. Ravi shares an optimistic perspective on how to collaborate across generations in order to overcome challenges and exploit opportunities that educators and their communities face.

Thursday, July 27, 2017

Dr. Jill BidenFormer Second Lady of the United States, and lifelong educator and advocate for community colleges and public education

Dr. Biden has been an educator for more than three decades. Prior to moving to Washington, D.C., she taught English at a community college in Delaware, at a public high school and at a psychiatric hospital for adolescents. Dr. Biden earned her Doctorate in Education from the University of Delaware in January of 2007. Her dissertation focused on maximizing student retention in community colleges. She also has two Master’s Degrees — both of which she earned while working and raising a family.

Dr. Biden has always said that community colleges are “one of America’s best kept secrets.” As a teacher, she sees how community colleges have changed the lives of so many of her students for the better. As Second Lady, she worked to underscore the critical role of community colleges in creating the best, most-educated workforce in the world. In 2012, she traveled across the country as part of the “Community College to Career” tour to highlight successful industry partnerships between community colleges and employers. In the fall of 2010, she hosted the first-ever White House Summit on Community Colleges with President Obama, and she continued to work on this outreach on behalf of the Administration – visiting campuses, meeting with students and teachers, as well as industry representatives around the country.

Join your colleagues for this incredible presentation and experience what it means to be a lifelong leader and advocate for education!

Noelle Ellerson focuses on leveraging the voice of school administrators in all aspects of federal education policy though member networks, outreach, policy analysis and involvement in the legislative process. She will share her work involving research and analysis supporting AASA’s advocacy work for public education as well as representing AASA advocacy priorities on Capitol Hill.

Catch up on all the latest legislative and policy news, both at the national and local level, during this closing keynote session at the 48th Annual CASE Convention!

Join Commissioner Dr. Katy Anthes and top-level CDE staff to hear the state perspective on current education issues, challenges, and opportunities. Attendees will have an opportunity to ask questions in this interactive, ticketed luncheon.

Upon being appointed Interim Commissioner of Education in May 2016, and then full Commissioner of Education on December 14, 2016, Dr. Katy Anthes became Colorado's first female commissioner in 65 years, preceded only by the state's inaugural commissioner Nettie S. Freed in 1950-51. Dr. Anthes has been with CDE since 2011, serving as Chief of Staff, Interim Commissioner for Achievement, and Strategy and Executive Director of Educator Effectiveness. In that role, she led CDE’s efforts to evaluate, support and retain highly effective educators in Colorado. In addition, Dr. Anthes was responsible for ensuring the successful implementation of the state’s educator evaluation and development system, pursuant to Senate Bill 10-191. In her past position as a partner with the Third Mile Group, Anthes led and researched major education initiatives for state, district and national organizations on a variety of education issues and projects including; the Colorado School Leadership Academy Board, the Expanded Learning Opportunities Commission and as an evaluator for several district education programs across the state.

Patty Alper
Women in Administration: A Journey from Entrepreneur to Mentor to Author
Thursday, July 27, 2017

Join Patty Alper and hear about her journey of passion. What has led her from a successful business career to building a mentorship model and, ultimately, writing a book about her experience? She poses "out of the box" questions such as: “Can business mentors integrate with the academic sector? Can they help prepare youth for 21st Century jobs in an adjunct capacity?" Patty will share her insights and first-hand experiences of mentoring inner city youth for 16 years with over 1,000 student letters that compelled her to write her book, titled Teach to Work: How a Mentor, a Mentee, and a Project Can Close the Skills Gap in America.

Benefits and Compensation: Steps Toward Ensuring a Competitive and Modern Workplace

The Department of Business Officials and Colorado Association of School Personnel Administrators are excited to come together to offer this extended session on benefits and compensation—two of the biggest factors in hiring and maintaining the best school/district personnel. In this new collaborative session, participants will receive an in-depth overview on the different options available to districts for their medical insurance needs, including health and dental. Presenters will unwrap today’s biggest buzzwords in school district insurance, including level-funded plans, partially self-funded plans, self-insured pools, and fully-funded plans. Attendees will learn the differences in implementation and operation of each of these systems.

Following this, participants will hear the first-hand experience of multiple district representatives regarding their efforts to modify traditional salary schedules. Together with attendees, these representatives will weigh the pros and cons of these differing methods and suggest best steps for proceeding in these types of updates. Presenters will also provide detailed insight into garnering community engagement and staff buy-in to these changes. With these tools, as well as the results from a leading consulting company’s compensation benchmark report and human resource data, attendees will learn how to ensure their school/district employee offerings are competitive and relevant for the modern workplace.

PreK – 3rd Grade Early Learning Strategies

Are you thinking about why a preschool to 3rd grade approach to elementary education is important and what it means for instruction and for increasing student outcomes? Looking for information on successful strategies being implemented in Colorado schools and districts? Want to support a student’s developmental growth and help them meet academic standards at the same time? Join us for a highly interactive session with key leaders from Aurora, Thompson, Boulder, Cotopaxi, and Denver as they discuss specific implementation strategies including a city wide P-3 road map, a P-3 approach to using CLASS for teacher observations and coaching, creating P-3 professional development and teaming, and new ways of incorporating a P-3 focus to teacher recruitment and career development. Learn more about the supports and resources available through the Colorado Department of Education and other national organizations. Scientific research has established that in order for all children to meet their full potential, it is important to build a strong foundation in the early years. Now is the time to consider incorporating P-3 as an important learning strategy in your schools and district.

Achieving School Transformation with Personalized PBL

Fully realizing the possibilities in the personalized learning movement requires fundamental shifts in culture and pedagogy. Project-Based Learning (PBL) offers an ideal platform for shifting those dynamics and creating powerful contexts for personalization tools and practices.

Too often, school and district leaders rely on “the next big thing” to bring about transformation – and are frustrated to find that those changes are short-lived at best. New Tech Network has worked with more than 200 schools over the past 20 years to bring about holistic change, using Project Based Learning (PBL) as the primary mode of instruction. Join our team for a hands-on session to explore the many ways that Personalized Learning and PBL intersect, for the benefit of your students.

Participants will be immersed in a sample project that centers on creating an environment that is conducive to change, while exploring the benefits of Personalized PBL for both learner and facilitator. Attendees will walk away with a sense of how PBL can be the pedagogy that powers personalization, and how personalization takes PBL to new heights. We’ll also identify tips and tricks that administrators can use to immediately transform learning in their school or district.

In the spirit of PBL, this is a hands-on session – sit and get is not allowed!

Join author Patty Alper as she shares new ideas on how to integrate the business sector with the academic through what she calls, "Project Based Mentoring." In her work, she poses the question "How can educators incorporate adjunct professionals to help teach 21st Century skills?" Her solution is a formula that combines a business mentor, a defined role, with project based learning assignments.

Learn how assimilating two different generations and culturally diverse people around something to “do,” will ultimately bring together a mentor and a mentee. Patty will explore how these two constituents work toward a mutual goal, develop a project plan, adhere to a timeline (4-8 months) and prepare for a graded oral defense. Join this session and begin to understand how this experience can develop student skills that are imminently applicable to the workplace.

Learn more about Patty's book, Teach to Work: How a Mentor, a Mentee and a Project Can Close the Skills Gap in America, by downloading her flyer, here.

Gene E. Hall
Change Leadership That Makes a Difference

There is widespread agreement that leaders make a difference. However, there is less certainty about which leaders make the most difference, and which characteristics of leaders make the difference. In this session, a leadership model based on more than twenty years of studies of change processes will be introduced. The model is evidence-based and is applied in schools, business, and the military. Six key dimensions of Change Facilitator Style will be described, along with examples. The constructs can be used to describe what change leaders do, and in understanding the difference leaders can make. Also, the six constructs can be applied in leader self-reflection, coaching leaders, and in research studies. The session will conclude with discussion of findings and implications about relationships between principal leadership, teacher success in implementing new programs, and student test scores.

Gene E. Hall earned his Ph.D. from Syracuse University and launched his academic career with eighteen years at the national R&D Center for Teacher Education, The University of Texas at Austin. Since then he has been a Professor of Educational Leadership at the University of Florida, Northern Colorado, and UNLV. He twice has served as the Dean of a College of Education. Dr. Hall’s main line of research has been related to the change process in organizational settings. He is the lead architect of the Concerns Based Adoption Model (CBAM). This model and the related research and training programs have been tested and applied in many types of organizations including schools, business, government, and the military. The work also is widely studied and applied in other countries. He also has had career long involvement with teacher education, especially in relation to national accreditation and program innovation.

Jon Landis
Mobility, Leadership, and Learning

Digital learning experiences and mobile devices are changing the education landscape. At this session, we’ll discuss strategies for leading your organization through this transition to create new learning and teaching opportunities. You’ll explore the role of visionary leadership in supporting school transformation and see how new learning resources support emerging trends in education.

Dr. Jon Landis is a development executive at Apple where he works internationally with colleges, universities, and K–12 institutions around issues of mobile technology. He’s a former professor in the College of Education at Millersville University where he was also the graduate coordinator of the Leadership Program and the coordinator of the CyberSafe Institute. Jon holds his PhD in Sociology, a master’s degree in Education Leadership, and a BS in Chemistry. Additionally, he’s served as a chemistry instructor, school principal, urban education program lead, curriculum director, and information technology director.

Ali Michael
Raising Race Questions: Where do White People Fit in?

Learning about race can be confusing, contentious, and frightening, particularly for White people. Even just asking questions about race can be scary because we are afraid of what our questions might reveal about our ignorance or bias. Raising Race Questions invites administrators to use inquiry as a way to develop sustained engagement with challenging racial questions, and to do so in community so that they learn how common their questions actually are. It lays out both a process for getting to questions that lead to growth and change, as well as a vision for where engagement with race questions might lead. Race questions and questions of privilege are not meant to lead people into a quagmire of guilt, discomfort, or isolation. Sustained race inquiry is meant to lead to anti-racist school communities, positive racial identities, and a restoration of the wholeness of spirit and community that racism undermines. The speaker is White and will share stories from her own research and her life experience.

Ali Michael, Ph.D., is the co-founder and director of the Race Institute for K-12 Educators, and the author of Raising Race Questions: Whiteness, Inquiry and Education (Teachers College Press, 2015), winner of the 2017 Society of Professors of Education Outstanding Book Award. She is co-editor of the bestselling Everyday White People Confront Racial and Social Injustice: 15 Stories (2015, Stylus Press) and The Guide for White Women who Teach Black Boys (2018, Corwin Press). She also sits on the editorial board of the journal Whiteness and Education. Ali teaches in the mid-career doctoral program at the University of Pennsylvania’s Graduate School of Education, as well as the Graduate Counseling Program at Arcadia University. In the 2017-18 school year, she will hold the Davis Visiting Professorship at Ursinus College. Ali’s article, What do White Children Need to Know About Race?, co-authored with Dr. Eleonora Bartoli in Independent Schools Magazine, won the Association and Media Publishing Gold Award for Best Feature Article in 2014. She may be best known for her November 9, 2016 piece What Do We Tell the Children? on the Huffington Post, where she is a regular contributor. For more details see www.alimichael.org.

Louise el Yaafouri
Teaching the Refugee Newcomer Learner

This session is designed for educators who do or will service refugee and immigrant Newcomer ELL students and families. Attendees will develop an understanding of the refugee and immigration processes and will learn to recognize and respond to cultural differences in the classroom. They will also identify key symptoms of traumatic upset and gain tools to address these unique learning needs as part of a best practices approach to Newcomer ELL instruction. The session is crafted to promote healthy classroom, school, and community cultures.

Louise El Yaafouri (Kreuzer) is an active educator, consultant and coach with extensive experience in ELA-E and ELD curriculum, instruction and design. She has been teaching in refugee and Newcomer settings for over a decade and currently serves as Chief ELA and Refugee/Immigrant Consultant at Sterling Literacy Consulting.

Louise specializes in guiding districts, schools, administrators through Newcomer program design and educator coaching around best practices in ELD instruction.

The Newcomer Student: An Educator’s Guide to Aid Transition (Rowman & Littlefield International), Louise’s first text, was published in 2016. Louise has contributed to various publications and manages Newcomer education-based posts at refugeeclassroom.com.

During the 2017 CASE Convention, Leadership Elevated, CASE offers more than 60 sessions totaling over 100 hours of professional learning. Attendees have the opportunity to engage with their peers on all the most timely and relevant issues facing Colorado K-12 education, including policy implementation, testing updates, legislative news, and all manner of innovative and relevant approaches to building the best school environments for Colorado's children.

All conference attendees are invited to one of the CASE Department Peer Sessions being held on Thursday afternoon from 3:45 pm - 4:45 pm. Meet and engage with colleagues in your job-alike role. Further develop your professional network. Relax with your peers after an invigorating day of professional learning. Explore which session is best for you in the information below.